Lesson 2

Meters
in
Threes
 Lavender's blue, dilly, dilly
Lavender's green
When I am king, dilly, dilly
Lavender's You shall be queen:
Blue Who told you so, dilly, dilly
Who told you so?
'Twas my own heart, dilly,
dilly
That told me so.
There are songs that when we listen to we feel
dacing waltz instead of marching. That is because
of the grouping of accented and unaccented
beats.
The song "Lavender's Blue" has this pattern:
If you feel a strong-weak-weak pattern on the
beats of the song. the meter is said to be in
three-time meter or triple meter. The time
signature for three-time meter is:

This upper number tells us that there are three

beats in each measure.
This lower number tells us that the quarter
note gets one beat.
Here is how the conducting pattern of
three-time meter looks like:
Here is the rhythmic pattern of the song
"Lavender's Blue." It also contains a dotted half
note which has three beats. It looks like this:

say: Ta-a-a